The Problem Of Purple Plagues White House Deadbeats And Other Politicos

COMMENTARY

May 3, 1992|By JAMES G. DRISCOLL, Editorial Writer

I don`t live or work in the White House, but I`ve been there a few times on news assignments so it seems reasonably familiar. Does this qualify me to join the White House credit union and forget about repaying loans?

Former White House aides still belong to the credit union, so why not thee and me? Isn`t it the nation`s house, and don`t all Americans have a stake in it?

Andy Jackson opened up the White House to commoners. The least George Bush could do is open up the credit union, not just to the 4,700 current members, but to every American, financially responsible or otherwise.

Of course the White House credit union already is burdened with more than its share of otherwise. Since Bush took office as president in 1989, White House employees have stiffed the credit union for $304,000 in unpaid loans. They`re late repaying another $338,340, but not to worry just because this credit union`s repayment record is worse than the vast majority of others.

Horrified White House spokespersons insisted frantically the credit union isn`t anything like the House of Representatives bank, which was run by the House leadership. Perspiring as they downplayed an article in The Washington Times, the White Housers screeched that the credit union operates entirely separately from anyone in the nation`s house.

All right. Calm down; we believe you. Bush and Dan Quayle are credit union members, have accounts and receive interest but that`s all.

It`s no savings and loan. It`s not run by anyone named Keating or Paul. None of Bush`s offspring is involved. There`s no immoral, credit-union equivalent to the Keating Five.

Still, there`s a problem. A problem of purple. The White House deadbeats who took the money and ran weren`t born to the purple, but act as if they were elected or hired to it. So do the pampered members of the House of Representatives who blithely wrote checks despite insufficient funds to back them.

Technically, Americans did away with royalty at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, but the tradition lives on in too many arrogant corporate CEOs and federal employees. That`s what the seething national anger is all about. Ordinary citizens resent being treated like serfs and taken for fools.

No one with any sense believes check overdrafts or unpaid loans equate to capital crimes. They`re not of the magnitude of the savings and loan scams or the Keating Five`s elastic consciences.

Purple, though, represents an insulting way of life, and if this is too simple for sophisticates inside the Washington Beltway, tough elections. When we taxpayers pay the salaries of elected and appointed federal employees, we expect, perhaps naively, reasonable humility and frugality in return. Instead, we learn our employees live the life of royalty, on us, and give us a vulgar gesture of disrespect.

We pay them, and they finesse perks we only dream of. And then they hide what they`re doing, the sneaky skunks.

Moaners and groaners for the status quo are sending scare signals. If voters indiscriminately oppose any incumbent who couldn`t balance his checkbook, some supposedly excellent members of Congress will be swept out along with the detritus.

Voters will take that chance, and very gladly, just to get rid of the others. Do members of Congress deserve re-election defeat just because they can`t add or subtract? Maybe not, but the almost unanimous feeling among plain citizens is this: There must be more in Congress members` bag of hidden sins. A couple of their other gross violations are obvious: They can`t balance the budget, and they`re killing the nation`s economy. Responsibility, many of them believe cynically, is for someone else.

The other day Al Capone`s tasteless belongings were auctioned off, bringing to mind how the justice system actually sent him to prison. They convicted Capone of income-tax evasion, perhaps the least of his crimes, but that was the only way they could get him.

Only the thickest member of Congress will need an explanation of how the Capone experience applies to him and his relatively minor checkbook overdrafts. And apply it does.